Almost 30 years, 5 albums on, our man from Naglfar brings us 7 pieces of death worship. So suitably our celebration in honor of death starts with the bells and a Burzum like fuzz to get us in the mood. The hymn “Haec est Mors Secunda”, which if my Latin is up to speed means “This is the second death” has choirs and is ominous. Working along at its own pace, it is full of menace. It is our appetiser.

I didn’t expect it to take off. “Breaking the Circle of Life” continues in the eerie vein of the opener, and through a strange combination of dirty black metal, choral symphony and a sinister child-like evil, we are subjected to threats of an intriguing kind. It is as if ghosts are emerging in a horror film setting. You couldn’t call this normal but you can call it black and inventive. I think he must have borrowed those choral people from Therion as here they go again on the painfully nasty “Architect of Death – Laudamus Te”. Gloomily murder is in the air as our man Marcus E. Norman takes us through his grisly tale. “I opened myself for you” is not as romantic as it sounds, I assure you. The choir adds pomp to this strangely hypnotic black dirge. On it plods imperiously. “The Coronation” is a fitting title for a track on this album which so full of pomp. Sometimes it heads into dark symphony. In this case it is black metal filled with grey hopelessness. “You failed” cries Mr Norman. Well he hasn’t failed in celebrating death as advertised. The funereal air at the end of “The Coronation” has the feel of one of those black metal tracks you used to listen to the early 90s when it was like being in a sombre, bleak, natural landscape.

The next ode to death is the equally sombre “Those Who Do Not Exist”. The beginning smacks of suffering, tortuously ringing out with its tune and the choir in the background. The mood turns to tragedy. The tragedy remains. We endure it. “And God Saw” ramps it up a bit. For the first time the drums head on at a fair lick. The mists accumulate as the symphony and black atmosphere swirl around. Dark fumes pour out as not for the first time we are taken to a dismal place where drudgery and suffering must reign supreme. In some ways it’s structurally like a conventional song with “and God saw” being repeated like a pop song except that here it’s harsh and of a nasty symphonic metal kind. The final step is the remorseless “Towards Your Destruction”. As before, there’s an attempt to grind us down through repetition of the choral line, which isn’t so interesting. We are uplifted as we reach skywards and are taken through ethereal symphonic and choral territory before finally returning to the mill and then ending in tones of sombre tragedy.

When you’ve been doing it for 30 years, I guess you know a thing or two about creating dark atmospheres and menace. Well there’s plenty of it here on the harsh and uncompromising “A Celebration in Honor of Death”.

(7.5/10 Andrew Doherty) 

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https://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/album/a-celebration-in-honor-of-death